Written by HHFL’s Paul Sane, Grade 12
Big holiday greetings to you all from the HHF-L kids! We hope you are all doing well and great.
I am writing to share with you a very exciting thing that happened on December 7th and 8th, here in Nairobi.
About 50 HHFL kids, including myself, attended an amazing 2-day event for children’s homes in Nairobi. This year, four children’s homes participated. There were about 200 children there.
The event was held in Kibera slum (Kibera is the second biggest slum in Africa, and has a lot of poor people and children). The idea is to compete against each other in various activities, from sports to design to art! This is our third year participating, and in past years we didn’t win anything. But this year was different – we reigned victorious for the first time!
Here’s what happened. On the first day, we competed in soccer against other homes. In our opening game, we drew 1-1 with one of the homes and we won the second game 1-0 against another home. We were given a walkover for our third game because the opponents were not around.
The second event was art and crafts, which to me was very fun because art and crafts is my talent. Most HHFL kids participated in an art exhibition. The judges were so impressed with our art works because they never expected us to be that good in art! The art competition was great because we were being asked to explain our ideas behind our pieces of art work.
The third event was a fashion show! There was a creative design category and a fashion show. Eight HHFL kids participants in this event, 2 created fashion designs and were models in the show! They did their best catwalk!
On the next day, we started the day with soccer finals. We called ourselves the HHFL PARROTS and we played against another home from Kibera slum. The HHFL PARROTS manage to win the game by one goal!
The next event was music and many children’s homes performed, including us. We played the keyboard and recorders playing Silent Night. Then, we sang a traditional folk song in Kikuyu. Our dancers were decorated in traditional costumes and colourful paints that we had made in our art class during the week. We sang a choral verse and also performed a spoken narrative.
At the end of the 2 days came the moment we had all been waiting for – the grand winners! And guess what? This time, HHFL came out on top!
1. Soccer : HHFL won 1st prize!
2. Arts and crafts : Top three artists were from HHFL, with me winning 1st prize!
3. Fashion Show: Snorine won 1st runner up (models were Leah, Cidella, Dorothy, Shirleen)
4. Instrumental Music: HHFL won 1st prize!
5. Spoken word: Nicodemus won!
I was so excited to be awarded “best artist” in the event and also, I was awarded “best designer” of the event. I designed Snorine’s costumes and she won 1st runner-up in the competition.
The judges were so impressed with HHFL and how we had come with a lot of positive energy for the competitions. We were very happy with our performances.
And because of our performances, we won the overall trophy for KENYA CHILDREN’S HOME TALENT SEARCH! It was the best moment – we still cannot believe it!
I want to take this opportunity to thank Mama Hanne, Baba Ted and all the donors for all the support you give to HHFL. If it was not for you all, we could not be in the competitions.
All we can just say is, THANK YOU AND WE LOVE YOU AND YOU ALL OWN A SPECIAL PLACE IN OUR HEARTS AND WE ARE HAPPY HAVING YOU IN OUR LIVES.
I wish you all a happy festive season and prosperous 2019!
Love, Paul Sane
